Morning Digest: The 2018 election cycle officially kicks off with Illinois' filing deadline

Illinois Democrat J.B. Pritzker (at right)

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

Leading Off

● IL-Gov: Monday brought us our first candidate filing deadline of the 2018 election cycle, as campaigns in Illinois were required to submit petitions in order to appear on ballot for next year's primary, which will take place on March 20. We've put together a calendar of every state's filing deadlines, primaries, and (where applicable) runoffs, which you'll want to bookmark and keep handy. You can find a list of candidates who have filed in Illinois for each race here.

At Daily Kos Elections, we spend a good deal of time writing about who might or might not run for office, and filing deadlines give us a chance to take stock of where each important race stands now that their fields are set. As the deadline passes in each state, we'll review every notable Senate, gubernatorial, and House contest and give our take on the lay of the land.

However, there are a few caveats to take into account. Most importantly, a race isn't necessarily set in stone after the deadline. Illinois, in fact, regularly offers good examples of this. Because candidates have to collect a certain number of signatures from voters to qualify for the ballot, they can and do get thrown off if they don't file enough valid petitions (and often, these petitions are challenged by opponents). We regularly see this sort of thing happen in Pennsylvania, New York, and Colorado, among other states, but many others don't require signatures to get on the ballot, so these kinds of issues don't arise in most places.

Sometimes we face a very different problem: Candidates will file properly and on time, but their names won't appear on official candidate lists provided by election officials for days after the deadline. It's therefore important to recognize that bureaucratic slowness might explain the absence of a particular candidate's name on a particular state's list, rather than a shock last-minute retirement. Two of the most problematic states in this regard are New Jersey and West Virginia, but this issue can crop up anywhere.

And even after a deadline passes, candidate fields can change. Candidates can drop out, or be removed from the ballot for other reasons, such as a failure to meet residency requirements. Sometimes, a new candidate can even get swapped in after a deadline, if a nominee quits and state law provides a mechanism for substituting a replacement. We'll continue to provide updates on all such fluctuations.

There's one other thing we want to highlight before we start. At this point in the cycle, we usually have a good sense for which candidates are serious and which aren't. However, there always are a few people who seemingly come out of nowhere to win their party's nomination, or emerge from a primary unheralded but go on to wage an unexpectedly tough general election campaign. For instance, when Ohio's filing deadline passed last cycle, we analyzed the Republican primary to succeed former Speaker John Boehner in the 8th District and identified three credible candidates. One person we did not mention at the time was veteran Warren Davidson, who picked up some influential endorsements the next month and went on to win the seat. So while filing deadlines provide us with a good opportunity to take stock of a race, we're always on the lookout for upsets.

With that, let's dive into the race for governor of Illinois. GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner unseated Democratic incumbent Pat Quinn 50-46 during the GOP wave, and he'll be a top Democratic target in this very blue state. Rauner has feuded with the Democratic-led state legislature for his entire term, and the state went without a budget for two years until July, when lawmakers overrode Rauner's veto. Rauner is hoping to convince voters that powerful state House Speaker Mike Madigan is the real source of the state's problems, though the governor may have gone overboard on Monday when he declared that Madigan is really the person who runs. "I am not in charge," Rauner gobsmackingly exclaimed. "I'm trying to get to be in charge." (Apparently, he's the reverse Al Haig.)

Before Rauner can concentrate on the general election, he has to fend off a primary challenge from the right. After Rauner signed a law allowing public funding for abortions earlier this year, several prominent state Republicans unendorsed him and state Rep. Jeanne Ives announced that she would challenge the governor. However, the only poll we've seen from the primary gave Rauner a giant 64-19 lead. And while Rauner has taken his lumps, the ultra-wealthy incumbent is almost certainly a stronger general election candidate than the ultra-conservative Ives. Notably, Ives called for challenging "this whole idea that transgenders have rights, which is a, something that is made up from the media" and said she was "not interested in providing child care to people where you don't even know the paternity."

One politician who considered running in the GOP primary but decided not to is state Sen. Sam McCann, who is close to organized labor. However, McCann announced he was ditching the GOP altogether because he thinks it's become too liberal. When he was asked if he was interested in running as an independent, he just said he was "abstaining from any further statement at this point."

Democrats have a primary to watch as well. Venture capitalist J.B. Pritzker, a billionaire who comes from a well-known Chicago family and is considerably wealthier than even Rauner, has been running ad after ad for months and shows no sign of stopping. Developer Chris Kennedy, the son of the late Robert F. Kennedy, and state Sen. Daniel Biss are also in. Neither of them has anything close to the resources to match Pritzker, so they've been waiting until closer to the primary to air ads, though Kennedy recently began spending. A few minor candidates are running, including Madison County Superintendent of Schools Bob Daiber, but none of them look like they have the resources to be competitive in a primary.

Senate

● AL-Sen: National Republicans have continued to walk back their earlier condemnation and abandonment of Republican nominee Roy Moore's campaign for Senate in Alabama. Late on Monday, the Republican National Committee resumed its financial support for Moore after Donald Trump gave the accused child predator his full endorsement earlier that day. The RNC's backing came in the form of a check to the state GOP for $170,000, which won't go very far with only days remaining in the race. However, Moore earning the support of the national party and Trump is a signal to wavering GOP voters that they should hold the line.

Indeed, even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has gone from saying Moore should drop out to claiming the Senate may have no option but to seat him if he wins. However, NRSC chair Cory Gardner still maintains that the Senate should expel Moore if he prevails. Nevertheless, Gardner's position may be more about the fine line he himself has to walk representing a light-blue state—in which he'll be up for re-election come 2020—whereas the vast majority of Republican senators are likely more concerned with attracting primary challenges from the right. The possibility of Republicans moving to expel a Sen. Moore is almost certainly doomed if McConnell isn't on board.

The GOP's return to supporting Moore comes at a time when coverage of his scandal has faded from receiving media saturation. Nevertheless, the scandal grew worse on Monday when one of Moore's accusers named Debbie Gibson produced a high school graduation card she says Moore had signed for her. Moore has recently claimed he never knew any of the women involved, but Gibson said they were openly involved 1981 after he spoke at her high school civics class when she was 17 and Moore was in his mid-30s. Gibson previously said she had held Moore "in high esteem" and maintained contact for years afterward but says she had to speak out once she found out about the other accusers and Moore claimed he never knew her.

Meanwhile, Moore continues to reveal his awful true colors, as does the Republican Party's reinvigorated support for him. Not only did he sexually prey on teenage girls, but he's also shown himself to be a raving anti-Semite by smearing progressive mega-donor George Soros:

"He is pushing an agenda and his agenda is sexual in nature, his agenda is liberal, and not what Americans need," said Moore. "It's not our American culture. Soros comes from another world that I don't identify with." [...]

"No matter how much money he's got, he's still going to the same place that people who don't recognize God and morality and accept his salvation are going. And that's not a good place."

At least the modern GOP makes it easy now, trading their dog whistles for bullhorns: Soros is a Jew and he's going to hell for it, plus he's un-American to boot. The idea that a sinister cabal of Jews is behind every woe that befalls white Christians is a timeless staple of the far-right, and the Hungarian-born Soros is a prominent boogeyman of the far-right both here and in Europe. Of course, the GOP thought it was fine to stand by Moore after he previously called for blocking the first Muslim congressman from being seated over his religion, so they undoubtedly won't give Moore's anti-Semitism a second thought.

Unfortunately, the party establishment's pivot back toward Moore is likely both a consequence and reinforcement of his rising poll numbers. Strategy Research's newest poll has Moore ahead by 50-43 against Democrat Doug Jones, which is in line with recent surveys from other outfits showing Moore attaining a modest advantage. However, Strategy Research had long had some of the most favorable results for Moore, and their previous surveys never found Jones ahead, unlike several other pollsters.

It appears the polling consensus has swung modestly back toward Moore: Political scientist Charles Franklin's average of the polls shows Moore ahead 48-45. However, it's worth reiterating just how extremely difficult of an election this is for pollsters to accurately gauge thanks to Moore's scandal and the unknown turnout composition of the electorate in a December special election. These uncertainties would make a sizable polling error in either direction unsurprising, which may also explain why the RNC is making a last-ditch effort here, and why Moore is finally seeing the first serious blast of outside spending on his behalf.

America First Action, which is a super PAC with ties to Trumpworld, disclosed that it would spend $1.1 million for Moore on TV ads and other media. Their spot takes on what Republicans see as Jones' biggest vulnerability (besides the "D" next to his name): his support for reproductive choice in a state that is made up heavily of white evangelical Christians. The ad shows a pregnant woman getting an ultrasound and claims in ominous tones that "liberal" Jones is "so extreme, he even supports abortion at 20 weeks." The spot closes by showing a picture of Jones pasted next to images of Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer.

Those supporting Jones have dropped some new ads of their own. Highway 31's latest spot blasts Moore for corruption, highlighting how he took $180,000 a year from his personal charity and also got perks like a private jet and personal bodyguard. And finally, Jones himself has a new ad where he argues Moore will be an embarrassment to the state and bad for Alabama businesses. He once again uses the words of longtime Republican Sen. Richard Shelby opposing Moore, playing a news clip that shows Shelby saying he'll write in another unnamed Republican but "will not be voting for Judge Moore."

● WV-Sen: Coal robber baron Don Blankenship recently filed to run for the Republican nomination for Senate in West Virginia, but he may have problems mounting a campaign thanks to his legal troubles. As the disgraced ex-CEO of Massey Energy, Blankenship was sentenced to a year in prison in 2016 for violating federal mine safety laws, and he is still on probation after getting out of prison earlier this year.

While that by itself won't prevent him from running for office, a new report details that Blankenship has told the justice system that his legal residence is in Las Vegas, Nevada for the past three years. Blankenship will need the sign-off from his probation officer or a federal judge to leave Nevada for any reason before May 9. That date happens to fall one day after West Virginia's primary, which would make in-person campaigning there problematic if Blankenship can't get permission to visit the state he actually wants to represent in the Senate.

Gubernatorial

● OH-Gov: On Tuesday, Democrat Richard Cordray made his long-awaited bid for Ohio governor official. Cordray recently resigned as the first director of the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau several months before his term was set to end, which did indeed turn out to be a prelude to a run for office. While the current Democratic field already includes several notable candidates, key state party members have long appeared keen on Cordray's candidacy thanks to his electoral track record, fundraising potential, and name recognition as head of the CFPB.

Cordray won election as state treasurer by a 58-42 blowout in 2006, followed by a 57-38 rout to become state attorney general in a 2008 special election, which makes him the only Democrat currently running who has won a statewide partisan election before. However, Cordray lost his battle for re-election two years later, but he only lost to his Republican foe, former Sen. Mike DeWine, by a 48-46 margin despite the huge GOP wave. Taken together, Cordray's statewide track record will likely make him stand out with pivotal party members and donors.

However, Cordray's decision to leave the CFPB several months early did not come without drawbacks for his candidacy. Congressional Republicans have long despised the bureau, which Democrats created under the Obama administration to protect consumers from predatory financial practices, and Cordray's resignation prompted Donald Trump to designate his budget director, Mick Mulvaney, to also simultaneously serve as the acting director of the CFPB. Although Cordray tried to install his deputy Leandra English as interim director, a court sided with Trump and Mulvaney in an initial round of legal action. If the Trump administration takes full charge of the agency, it will almost certainly do everything it can to undermine it, a fact that a number of Cordray's fellow Democrats have already seized on and attacked him over.

However, it's unclear just how much traction Cordray's opponents may be able to gain over the issue of the CFPB, particularly since his resignation only sped up the inevitable by several months. Furthermore, none of the Democratic candidates had raised intimidating funds during the first half of 2017, and we don't yet know if they've managed to step up the pace since. If Cordray's stature allows him to dominate in fundraising, it could be hard for his opponents to get their message out to effectively attack him over the CFPB.

The Democratic primary already includes Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, former Rep. Betty Sutton, ex-state Rep. Connie Pillich, state Sen. Joe Schiavoni, and state Supreme Court Justice Bill O'Neill. There had been speculation that some of these candidates could drop out with Cordray now in the race, especially O'Neill, who recently found himself in hot water over an offensive Facebook post where he defended members of Congress and others accused of sexual harassment while bragging about his own sexual prowess. O'Neill has thus far sounded unlikely to drop out simply due to Cordray entering the race, even though his Facebook post prompted his campaign manager to resign in protest.

And while Cordray appears to be one of the strongest Democratic contenders on paper, he wouldn't be the first candidate to seek to return to elected office after years of absence only to reveal new vulnerabilities. However, the Republican Governors Association has focused their attacks on him for months, a sign that he's the candidate they fear most. Cordray's candidacy may thus give Democrats a boost in their effort to break the GOP's stranglehold on state government in a long-time swing state that took a sharp right turn in 2016.

And should Cordray make it to the general election, it increasingly looks like he'd face a rematch with none other than DeWine himself, since DeWine is in the driver's seat to win the GOP primary after two terms as attorney general.

● RI-Gov: Former Republican state Rep. Joe Trillo, who was also Donald Trump's honorary state campaign chair in Rhode Island last year, had been considering a bid for governor and had promised an announcement "before the end of the year." He's made good on that pledge, but there's a twist: He's going to run as an independent. That probably won't make Republicans happy, since they'd hate to see a splitter derail their chances of unseating one-term Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo, but Trillo probably doesn't have the juice to gain a lot of traction.

He also seems a bit all over the place ideologically: He still identifies as a "Trump Republican" but at the same time says, "I feel in many ways my Republican Party left me" and at the same time says he needs support from Democrats and independents. Well, that's true, and Rhode Island is indeed home to a larger-than-usual cohort of disaffected conservative Democrats, but it would be quite challenging to cobble together a winning coalition based on this platform. Already running for the GOP are Cranston Mayor Allan Fung and state House Minority Leader Patricia Morgan, while Raimondo herself could yet draw a primary challenge.

House

● IL-01: Veteran Rep. Bobby Rush (the only person to ever defeat Barack Obama in an election) kept Chicago politicos guessing during the final week before Monday's candidate filing deadline about whether or not he'd seek another term in this safely blue seat or retire at the last minute. Rush announced on Friday he was running again and he did indeed file, but one old rival decided to circulate petitions anyway. Chicago Alderman Howard Brookins, who lost the 2016 primary 71-19, said he didn't intend to run again against Rush but won't decide if he'd drop out until later.

Despite his crushing defeat last year, there's one good reason Brookins may want to stay in the race, at least for now. Last cycle, Brookins challenged Rush's nominating petitions, and came very close to getting the congressman removed from the ballot. In the end Rush had just 90 more valid petitions than the minimum he needed. If Rush was sloppy again, Brookins could wind up as the only Democrat on the primary ballot.

● IL-03: Rep. Dan Lipinski has been one of the most conservative Democrats in the House for a while, and he remains as hostile to abortion rights as ever. Several national progressive groups, including Daily Kos, are supporting businesswoman Marie Newman's primary bid against him in this Chicago-area seat, which went for Hillary Clinton by a 55-40 margin. Newman is the only other Democrat who filed, so she won't need to worry about splitting the anti-Lipinski vote with someone else. However, there's no question that this will be a tough campaign. Lipinski remains a loyal ally of the powerful Chicago Democratic machine, and he had a hefty $1.5 million to $98,000 cash-on-hand edge at the end of September.

● IL-04: Veteran Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez announced last week that he would retire from this safely blue Chicago seat, giving his would-be successors just days to decide if they would run and to collect the petitions to make the ballot. In the end, seven Democrats filed. (Gutierrez is also listed because he turned in petitions before he announced he wouldn't run.) Because candidates had so little time to collect signatures, there's a decent chance that some of these people will get knocked off the March primary ballot.

Gutierrez endorsed Cook County Commissioner Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, who lost the 2015 race for mayor of Chicago to incumbent Rahm Emanuel 56-44 but did very well in this area. Garcia also quickly picked up an endorsement from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, which could be very useful in a seat that Sanders carried 58-42 in last year's Democratic primary.

Garcia is far from the only Democrat who decided to run, though. Chicago Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa quickly announced he was in, and he's affiliated with the Sanders-aligned Democratic Socialists of America. State Sen. Daniel Biss picked Ramirez-Rosa to be his candidate for lieutenant governor earlier this year. However, after Rep. Brad Schneider unendorsed Biss over Ramirez-Rosa's support for the so-called "Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions" (or BDS) movement targeting Israel, Biss soon dropped him from the ticket.

Two other Chicago aldermen are also in. Raymond Lopez, a first-term member of the city council, attracted attention earlier this year after the police put him under protection because of gang threats against him. Aldermen Proco "Joe" Moreno has been on the council longer, though he only narrowly won a majority of the vote against a split field in his 2015 re-election bid.

Sol Flores, who serves as executive director of a community group that helps local homeless families, is running as well, and Politico recently described her as a "popular Latina community activist." Neli Vazquez-Rowland, who is president of another group that helps people struggling homelessness and substance abuse, is another candidate. The Chicago Sun-Times writes that she's close to GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner and First Lady Diana Rauner, which could help her raise money but may also be a liability with primary voters. Finally, police Sgt. Richard Gonzalez decided to run against Gutierrez before he retired, and while he has the support of state Rep. Luis Arroyo Sr., he looks like a longshot. However, anything could happen in a crowded primary.

● IL-06: This well-educated suburban Chicago seat did not react well to Trump last year, and swinging from 53-45 Romney to 50-43 Clinton. Democrats had largely ignored Republican Rep. Peter Roskam since his initial 2006 win against now-Sen. Tammy Duckworth, but seven Democrats filed to run here this time.

There's no clear primary frontrunner at this point. Kelly Mazeski, a member of the Barrington Hills Planning Commission, had $343,000 in the bank at the end of September, the most of any of the Democratic candidates. Mazeski, who lost a state Senate race 59-41 last year, also recently picked up a key endorsement from EMILY's List. The only other Democrat who had more than $100,000 on-hand at the end of the last quarter was clean energy businessman Sean Casten, who like Mazeski has been doing some self-funding.

Also in the hunt are Carole Cheney, who recently stepped down as chief of staff to neighboring 11th District Rep. Bill Foster; Naperville City Councilor Becky Anderson; attorney Amanda Howland, who lost to Roskam 59-41 in 2016; and two others. Whoever emerges from the primary will be in for a tough match against the well-funded Roskam.

● IL-10: Last cycle, Democrat Brad Schneider unseated Republican Bob Dold! in a very expensive race 53-47 as the district moved from 58-41 Obama to 62-33 Clinton. Dold, who lost to Schneider in 2012 and beat him in 2014, decided not to seek a fourth encounter after his most recent loss. This district, which includes the affluent suburbs north of Chicago, has been friendly to Republicans down the ballot even while voting for Democratic presidential candidates, and three Republicans are hoping that ticket-splitting is still en vogue here.

Physician Sapan Shah; Jeremy Wynes, who has served as a regional director of the Republican Jewish Coalition; and management and technical consultant Doug Bennett are all running. Though a mixture of fundraising and self-funding, Shah had $306,000 in the bank at the end of September, ahead of Wynes' $221,000 war-chest. Bennett, who is the most socially conservative of the trio, had $115,000, most of it from his own wallet. Schneider  has always been a strong fundraiser, and he had $1.4 million on-hand. National Republicans are unlikely to show as much interest in this seat as they showed when Dold was on the ballot, though it may be worth keeping an eye on just in case.

● IL-12: This downstate Illinois seat, which includes some of St. Louis' suburbs, swung from 50-48 Obama to 55-40 Trump, but Democrats have recruited a strong candidate against sophomore Republican Rep. Mike Bost. St. Clair County State's Attorney Brendan Kelly, the top prosecutor in the district's largest county, outraised Bost in his opening fundraising quarter, and he faces only minor primary opposition.

● IL-13: Democrat didn't seriously target GOP Rep. Rodney Davis last year, and his downstate seat moved from a slim Romney win to 50-44 Trump. This time, five Democrats are running for this district, which includes part of Springfield, Bloomington, and Champaign. Betsy Londrigan, a fundraising consultant who has previously worked for Sen. Dick Durbin, has the support of her old boss and EMILY's List. But attorney Erik Jones, a former policy director for state Attorney General Lisa Madigan, outraised Londrigan during their first quarter in the race, and he had a $195,000 to $129,000 cash-on-hand lead at the end of September.

One potential wild card is perennial candidate David Gill. Gill was the Democratic nominee in a previous version of this seat in 2004, 2006, and 2010, and he never came close to winning. But in 2012, Gill beat the favored candidate of the Democratic establishment in the 2012 primary, and he only narrowly lost to Davis. Gill tried to run here as an independent in 2014, but he failed to make the ballot. Gill is a Democrat again and is once again running here. Gill only had $4,000 in the bank at the end of September, but after 2012, national Democrats have reason to be nervous that he could once again win the primary. Retired Navy intelligence officer Jonathan Ebel, who had just $76,000 on-hand, and one other candidate are also in.

● IL-14: This exurban Chicago seat went from 54-44 Romney to 49-45 Trump, and GOP Rep. Randy Hultgren could be a target in a good Democratic year. So far, none of the Democrats who have filed have reported raising a great deal of money, though. The top fundraiser of the third quarter was Matt Brolley, the president of the village of Montgomery, and he only took in $82,000. Brolley, nurse Lauren Underwood, and high school teacher Victor Swanson, a brother of comedian Andy Richter, each had less than $65,000 on-hand at the end of September. Three other Democrats are also in. We'll have to wait to see if anyone catches fire.

● IL-15: While state Sen. Kyle McCarter had made some noise about challenging longtime Rep. John Shimkus in the primary once again, he didn't end of jumping in. Shimkus dispatched McCarter 60-40 in 2016, so he probably wasn't incredibly terrified of a rematch. Shimkus will face no primary opposition in this 71-25 Trump seat.

● IL-17: Last cycle, this downstate seat, which includes part of Rockford and the Quad Cities, swung from 58-41 Obama to 47.4-46.7 Trump. Democratic Rep. Cheri Bustos had no serious opposition last time, but businessman Mark Kleine is hoping to give her a serious challenge. Kleine quickly raised a credible $373,000 in his first quarter in the race and self-funded another $135,000, giving him a $508,000 war-chest. Bustos is well-funded and had $2.4 million on-hand. One minor Republican is also running here.

● KY-06: Lexington Mayor Jim Gray jumped into the race against Republican Rep. Andy Barr on Tuesday, giving national Democrats their long-desired top recruit but also setting up a potentially expensive Democratic primary battle. Gray is a businessman who first won election as mayor of Kentucky's second largest city in 2010 by ousting an incumbent Democrat in a hard-fought nonpartisan contest. Lexington comprises nearly half this district's population, giving Gray a particularly prominent launching pad to run for the House. He is also personally wealthy and could potentially self-fund some. If Gray were to win, he would become the first openly gay member of Congress elected in both Kentucky and the entire South itself.

Gray ran for Senate in 2016 against Republican incumbent Rand Paul, and while he lost to by a daunting 57-43 margin, he significantly outpaced Hillary Clinton's landslide 63-33 defeat in Kentucky despite the Senate race garnering little national attention. Most importantly, Gray managed to beat Paul by a 52-48 margin in the territory that comprises the 6th District, proving he can win over the sorts of voters Democrats need to prevail in this ancestrally blue district, which favored Trump by an imposing 55-39 spread. Democrats have often done better in the 6th in state-level races, but it's harder to get voters to split their tickets in federal races, making Gray's performance in this area all the more impressive.

However, Gray won't have an easy path ahead of him, starting off with the primary. Retired Marine Lt. Col. Amy McGrath, whose service includes flying 89 combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, joined the primary over the summer with a well-polished and hard-hitting introductory video. That video quickly went viral nationally, and the first-time candidate raised an astonishing $723,000 in the third quarter to finish September with a hefty $552,000 in cash-on-hand. McGrath showed no sign that Gray's entry has given her second thoughts about running; to the contrary, she reacted by jabbing Gray as a "big city mayor" while promising she'd "fight for people in every city, town, and county in this district."

One other Democratic primary candidate, state Sen. Reggie Thomas, also said he was staying in the race, but Thomas has lagged far behind in fundraising and had only $78,000 in the bank after September. However, while former state Rep. Leslie Combs had been previously mentioned as a possible candidate, she announced her support for McGrath instead.

Primaries are, of course, an important part of our democracy, and they can often prove very valuable in battle-testing good candidates and weeding out bad ones. But Democrats would undoubtedly prefer to avoid having to spend large sums here to pick a nominee, particularly if things get acrimonious. Barr himself will be able to stockpile his resources, and he'll be tough to dislodge in a district that leans decidedly to the right at the presidential level.

● MI-09: Immediately after veteran Democratic Rep. Sandy Levin announced he would retire over the weekend, speculation began that his son, attorney and businessman Andy Levin, would run to succeed him in this suburban Detroit seat. The younger Levin said last month that he was interested in running whenever his father decided to leave, and while he has not yet said anything publicly, the Detroit News' Jonathan Oosting reported on Monday that he's expected to announce he's in "in the coming days."

Andy Levin has only run for office once, narrowly losing a 2006 state legislative race to John Pappageorge, a Republican who had tried to unseat his father three times in the 1990s. Afterwards, Levin became a deputy at the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth, and he served as acting director in 2010.

A few other Democrats are suggesting they might run. State Sen. Steve Bieda, who represents a Macomb County seat, said he was interested. A source told Oosting that Bieda likely would run, though Bieda said he wouldn't make a decision immediately. Oakland County Treasurer Andy Meisner also acknowledged he was considering, though he said he didn't have a timeline for when he'd decide. Businessman Kevin Howley, who lost a 2012 race for Oakland County executive 57-43, said he was looking at who else runs before deciding.

About two-thirds of this seat is in Macomb, while the balance is in Oakland. So far, most of the potential Democratic candidates hail from Oakland, which could help the Macomb-based Bieda if he runs. This district went from 57-42 Obama to a smaller 51-44 Clinton margin, but it's likely to stay blue in a year where the House GOP is largely on the defensive.

● MI-11: This week, businessman Suneel Gupta announced he would join the Democratic primary for this open suburban Detroit seat. Gupta is a former executive at Groupon who went on to found a medical services company, and he's also a younger brother of CNN medical reporter Sanjay Gupta. Gupta will face a packed Democratic primary that includes state Rep. Tim Greimel; physician Anil Kumar; businessman Dan Haberman; Fayrouz Saad, a former director of immigration affairs for the city Detroit; and Haley Stevens, a former chief of staff to Barack Obama's Auto Task Force. The GOP also has a crowded contest in this 50-45 Trump seat.

● MI-13: On Tuesday, Democratic Rep. John Conyers announced that he was resigning in the middle of his 27th term in office, effective immediately. Conyers won his first House primary all the way back in 1964 by just 108 votes, and he became the chamber's longest-serving member in early 2015 after his one-time boss, fellow Michigan Rep. John Dingell, retired. Conyers, who was one of the founding members of the Congressional Black Caucus, was also the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee for many years. However, his long career began to unravel just before Thanksgiving, when leaked documents revealed that he had been accused of sexually harassing women on his staff and settled a complaint for $27,000.

Following this news, several women publicly came forward to lodge similar accusations, and Conyers' position became increasingly untenable. While Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi drew immediate and widespread rebuke when she called Conyers an "icon" while questioning his accusers' reliability, soon thereafter she and the rest of the party's leadership called for the Conyers to resign. Conyers' team initially insisted he wouldn't quit, but the longtime congressman quickly found himself isolated.

Matters came to a head on Tuesday, when another former Conyers staffer publicly accused him of unwanted touching and appearing naked in front of her. Hours later, Conyers appeared on a radio program to say he was "retiring today." That muddy phrasing left it unclear as to whether Conyers was simply planning to retire at the end of his term in early 2019, or if he in fact was going to resign right away, but later in the day, Conyers sent a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan confirming that he had in fact resigned.

It's now up to GOP Gov. Rick Snyder to set the dates for a special election to fill Conyers' safely blue seat, which includes much of Detroit as well as some of its nearby suburbs. The parties will choose their nominees through a primary, and there's no doubt that the Democratic nominee will prevail in this 79-18 Clinton seat. However, it's anyone's guess as to who will emerge from what will likely be a crowded nomination battle.

Conyers himself endorsed his eldest son, John Conyers III, to replace him, though the sight of a career politician attempting to anoint his own child as his successor while resigning in disgrace might not prove appealing to voters, despite the elder Conyers' storied career. Conyers III, who is 27, is a partner at a local hedge fund, but he's never held elected office, and he drew some unfavorable headlines in 2010 when his father had to reimburse the Treasury for $5,700 for his son's misuse of a taxpayer funded car. The younger Conyers has not said anything about his plans, though he publicly defended his father last week.

It's not all one big happy family, though. State Sen. Ian Conyers, the former congressman's grandnephew, said on Friday he would run to succeed his granduncle whenever he decided to leave office, an event that has of course has now come to pass. Soon after John Conyers called it quits, Ian Conyers asserted that these new developments had done nothing to alter his plans, suggesting that the congressman's endorsement might not prove so intimidating.

Indeed, plenty of other Democrats not named Conyers could also run here. State Sen. David Knezek said Tuesday he was focused on impending Senate matters, which is not a no, while state Sen. Coleman Young II, who badly lost a race for mayor of Detroit to incumbent Mike Duggan 72-28 just last month, said, "There's always definitely talk, but that's all it is right now," also not a no.

Just before Conyers called it quits, Democratic operatives told Roll Call that Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon would "likely" run. Napoleon ran for mayor in 2013 and lost what was an open seat race to Duggan 55-45. Napoleon had no problem winning re-election as sheriff in 2016, and he backed Duggan's bid for a second term.

Finally, the Detroit Free Press also mentioned Detroit City Councilwoman Mary Sheffield>, Council President Brenda Jones, Westland Mayor William Wild, and ex-state Rep. Rashida Tlaib (whose 2008 victory made her one of the first Muslim-American women to win elected office anywhere) as possible candidates. Sheffield's father, minister Horace Sheffield, lost the 2014 primary to Conyers 74-26, and while he says he has no interest in running again, he talked up his daughter as a potential candidate.

● OH-12: Republican Rep. Pat Tiberi announced in October that he would resign from this seat by Jan. 31, but he's given no additional clues as to when exactly he'll go. This Columbus-area seat backed Romney 54-44 and Trump by a similar 53-42 spread, and there's a very small Democratic bench here. Still, Democrats will want to make a play here, and a well-known, though not so electorally successful, local candidate seems interested. The Cleveland Plain Dealer's Jeremy Pelzer reports that ex-Franklin County Sheriff Zach Scott has filed to run, though he hasn't made any announcement yet.

Scott was appointed sheriff of Franklin, which is the largest county in the district, in 2011 and decisively won re-election the next year. Scott ran for mayor of Columbus in 2015 but came into conflict with the powerful local establishment, which backed fellow Democrat Andrew Ginther. Ginther, the president of the city council, attracted months of bad headlines stemming from a local corruption investigation, but he was never charged with anything. Ginther decisively outraised Scott and won the nonpartisan general election 59-41.

A few months later, Scott lost the Democratic primary to keep his job 52-48 against a candidate backed by Ginther and his allies. On his way out, Scott blasted party leaders, saying they "went out of their way to make sure, I guess, I was penalized for trying to give the public, voters, a choice." Meanwhile, another Franklin County Democrat will not be running here. While County Recorder Danny O'Connor didn't rule out a bid just after Tiberi called it quits, he said on Tuesday he was a no.

● PA-16: On Tuesday, EMILY's List, which backs pro-choice Democratic women, endorsed nonprofit consultant Christina Hartman in her second bid against GOP Rep. Lloyd Smucker in southeast Pennsylvania's 16th Congressional District. Hartman faces one other notable woman in the Democratic primary, nonprofit director Jess King, though King's website doesn't offer any information about her views on reproductive rights. King sounds very liberal, though, so what likely distinguishes the two candidates is the fact that EMILY supported Hartman when she first ran in 2016, and they often come back for repeat engagements. In addition, Hartman raised more than twice as much money as King in the third quarter of the year.

● TX-29: On Tuesday, former Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia announced that he would run for the Harris County Commission rather than for this safely blue open seat. Last year, Garcia unexpectedly decided to challenge Democratic Rep. Gene Green in the primary and lost 57-39. Green announced he would retire last month, and while Garcia reportedly asked the county Democratic Party for paperwork to prepare for another House bid, he never showed any further interest over the next few weeks.

● TX-31: Air Force veteran M.J. Hegar, who is challenging GOP Rep. John Carter in Texas' 31st Congressional District, has released a new poll from PPP that shows she's in a position to give the incumbent his first-ever competitive general election. The survey finds Carter up just 46-40, which is a rather tight spread for an incumbent who's never won by less than 20 points. In addition, the poll puts Donald Trump underwater, with 45 percent of voters approving of his performance in office and 49 percent disapproving.

That's believable, because this fairly well-educated and well-off district in suburban Austin rebelled against Trump last year: After giving Mitt Romney a wide 60-38 win in 2012, the 31st went for Trump by a much narrower 54-41 margin. Respondents to this poll say they voted for Trump over Hillary Clinton 48-39, but that smaller 9-point edge makes sense given Trump's ceaseless travails since winning office. Of course, Carter still has the advantage in a district this conservative, but Hegar has a hell of a bio (let's just put it this way: Angelina Jolie is reportedly in talks to star in a movie based on her memoir), and if she can raise some real money, she can definitely put a scare into the GOP.

Other Races

● IL-AG: Attorney General Lisa Madigan shocked the state political world when she announced she would not seek a fifth term in October, and eight Democrats are running to succeed her.

One of them is Pat Quinn, who served as governor from 2009 until he was ousted by Bruce Rauner 50-46 in 2014. Quinn was unpopular during most of his tenure, including with powerful Democrats. Notably, Quinn had a turbulent relationship with labor, and he did not please teachers' unions when he chose former Chicago Public Schools chief Paul Vallas, who hails from the Michelle Rhee school of education "reform," as his running mate in 2014. However, it's quite possible that Quinn's superior name-recognition will allow him to secure the nomination in this very crowded primary.

Also in the running are state Rep. Scott Drury; former Chicago police civilian authority chief Sharon Fairley; attorney Aaron Goldstein; former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti; state Sen. Sen. Kwame Raoul, who has been mentioned as a rising star in Democratic politics for years; Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering, who lost a 2016 House primary to once-and-future Rep. Brad Schneider 54-46; and Chicago Park Board President Jesse Ruiz. On the GOP side, attorney Erika Harold, who lost a 2014 primary challenge against Rep. Rodney Davis 55-41, faces DuPage County Board member Gary Grasso.